Actor Richard Schaal has died, aged 86. The Mary Tyler Moore Show regular, who also appeared in the comedy show's spin-offs Rhoda and Phyllis, passed away at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills, California on Tuesday (04Nov14).
A former member of the fabled Chicago, Illinois comedy troupe Second City, Schaal played twins Howard and Paul Arnell, Dino and Chuckles the Clown on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
He also appeared on The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl and Bob Newhart and in the films Slaughterhouse-Five and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.
Married three times, his second wife was his Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda co-star Valerie Harper.

Filmmaker Abby Singer has died at the age of 96. Singer lost his battle with cancer and passed away on Thursday (13Mar14) at the Motion Picture & Television Country House in Woodland Hills, California.
He began his career as an assistant to film producer Jack Fier in 1949 and moved into TV as a production manager on several shows such as Gunsmoke, The Bob Newhart Show and Rhoda.
He worked as an assistant director on films such as Death of a Salesman, The Guns of Fort Petticoat and A Lawless Street, and he was immortalised into the movie industry vernacular thanks to his penchant for calling the penultimate shot of the day, known as the 'Abby Singer'.
Now, many productions wrap up filming a shot after the 'Abby Singer'.
He told the DGA Quarterly in 2011, "Working in TV we made many moves per day - from the backlot to the stage, or from one stage to another. I'd say to the guys, 'One more shot and then we're moving', so when we moved, they were all prepared. The time saved could add up to a full hour of shooting for the director.
"It caught on like lightning. I was hearing it all the time."

Longtime Estee Lauder model Hilary Rhoda is set to wed actress Elisha Cuthbert's ex-boyfriend Sean Avery. The 26-year-old stunner has been dating the ice hockey star for the past three years. They announced their engagement on Wednesday (13Nov13).
A statement from the couple reads: "We are excited to plan the most beautiful and fun wedding that we could ever imagine."
Rhoda and Avery are planning to exchange vows next summer (14).

Actress Valerie Harper has been given another big boost in her cancer battle - she will live to see Christmas. The Rhoda star was given just three to six months to live when she was first diagnosed with the disease in January (13), but now doctors have told her she can start making holiday plans because she's winning her fight with a rare cancer of the brain lining.
She tells America's Closer magazine, "(My doctor) said, 'At the rate we are going, you don't have to worry... You will see Christmas!'
"I thought, 'Could I be so lucky to have that happen again?'"
The news came following a second positive brain scan just days after she was eliminated as a contestant on U.S. TV show Dancing With the Stars, and she adds, "I do believe in miracles."
And the ups and downs of the past 10 months have taught the 74 year old to face every day with a smile and a lot of positive energy.
She tells the publication, "We are all terminal and it's great to face that - and then discard it. Don't live in fear of dying."

Veteran actress Valerie Harper has revealed she found out about her lung cancer diagnosis by accident during wrist surgery. The Rhoda star was told she had lung cancer back in 2009, and in March (13), she announced she had just months to live after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
In an interview with U.S. chat show host Queen Latifah, Harper revealed that the first time she received the news she had cancer, it came as a complete shock, since she was going under the knife to repair her wrist.
She explained, "I found out about my lung cancer accidentally. I was getting wrist surgery. I was getting an X-Ray because they don't take you into the operating room without it. So we stopped the wrist surgery and went right to the operating room. That was five years ago."

Terminal cancer patient Valerie Harper has added a new chapter to her memoirs about her battle with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. The 74-year-old TV star was cancer free after a battle with lung cancer when the first edition of her autobiography, I, Rhoda, came out in 2010, but she learned that the disease had returned to her life in January (13) - and she only had months to live.
Harper has since defeated the odds and the brain cancer is receding; she has even signed up as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars in America.
But before she hit the TV dancefloor earlier this week (beg16Sep13), she had to add a chapter to her book.
She explains, "The paperback was coming out and (publishers) Simon & Schuster... called and said, 'Let's have an afterword or another chapter about this,' because, at the end of the book, I'm cancer-free, which is not true. It was true when I finished the book.
"The book ends in 2010 and I had conquered lung cancer and then this thing came up and at the same time the book was coming out, so we thought we'd wait and when the paperback came out I put that additional chapter (in it)."

Actress Edie Falco battled against 150 competitors in a charity paddle board race in New York on Saturday (17Aug13). The Sopranos star hit the water at Sag Harbor in the Hamptons to take part in the Paddle and Party for Pink, a race to raise money for America's Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
The event raised $1.2 million (£800,000) for the fund, which helps pay for research into the deadly disease.
After the race, competitors mixed with celebrities and socialites at a special party, held at the home of fashion designer Lisa Perry, with guests including Martha Stewart, Donna Karan and Hilary Rhoda.

Terminally-ill actress Valerie Harper is returning to work on a TV movie just months after doctors told her she has incurable brain cancer. The former The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda star announced she had just months to live back in March (13), but she's determined to make the most of her time by signing up for a new project.
The 73 year old will star in the adaptation of author Ronda Rich's novel The Town That Came A-Courtin'. Harper started shooting the movie in Vancouver, Canada on Wednesday (31Aug13).
The veteran star has also invited a camera team from America's NBC into her home to document her ongoing cancer battle.

Canadian artist Alex Colville has died at the age of 92. A message posted on his official website states he "passed away peacefully" at his home in Nova Scotia on Tuesday (16Jul13).
After starting his career as a painter in the Canadian military during World War II, Colville went on to gain acclaim for his detailed depictions of everyday scenes.
His work was exhibited in some of the world's most renowned galleries, including the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
He was presented with his homeland's highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order of Canada, in 1982, and his Man on Verandah painting set the record for a work by a living Canadian artist when it sold for $1.3 million (£832,000) in 2010.
Another of Colville's works, the Horse and the Church, appeared on a Canadian stamp in 2002.
His death comes months after his artist wife, Rhoda, passed away aged 91 in December (12).

Britney Spears is out doing press and magazine photo shoots, so it's time for another round of our nation's favorite game: Is Britney Spears Fat or Thin?
Though this dress (above) is reason enough to swoon, it has websites, from Us to Hollywood Life to The Examiner, once again chattering. All of this comes just after Shape magazine revealed its June cover featuring Spears in a killer white bikini and, of course, her famous abs. The internet has thus exploded with speculation about Photoshopping (which I won't dignify with a link here) as well as general panting about her once-again-toned physique.
This seems to be the price one pays for being a sex symbol in one's youth. Britney's so identified with her slamming body (I admit, I've watched the "I'm a Slave 4 U" video more than once for inspiration before ab work) that she may never escape this cycle as long as she's in the public eye.
The Shape article, at least, does paint a nicely realistic portrait of Brit's struggles to reach the impossibly high fitness standards the world sets for her. "I like it, then again, I hate it," she says in Shape. "I'm in my 30s now, so I have to work harder to keep it up." She adds, "Dieting is tough … because my specialties are spaghetti, brownies and chocolate chip cookies."
And as Us pointed out, back in a January 2009 issue of Glamour, Spears admitted that being a mom changed her workout priorities. "I have had to work hard at getting it back to where it used to be," she said of her body. "I used to be obsessed with working out. …[now], three days a week is cool, even two.”
Now that's some real inspiration: Even Britney Spears knows having a perfect body isn't easy — but it also isn't everything.
In case you need some gymspiration:
Hollywood.Com Correspondent Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Is The Author Of Sexy Feminism And Mary And Lou And Rhoda And Ted, A History Of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Visit Her Online At JenniferKArmstrong.Com.
Follow Jennifer On Twitter @Jkarmstrong
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Synopsis

A spin-off from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." The original format, set in New York City, depicts incidents in the lives of Rhoda Morganstern, a window dresser, and her husband, Joe Gerard, the head of a wrecking company. The revised format, which begins two years later (after Joe and Rhoda's divorce), follows the romantic misadventures of Rhoda, now a designer with the Doyle Costume Company in Manhattan.